Dem Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers blamed Republicans, from top to bottom, for the continued impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Evers attacked the President directly during Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that local Republican leaders also bore some responsibility for the surge in cases in Wisconsin.
Anchor Jake Tapper noted the fact that President Trump was planning to return to Wisconsin Sunday evening even as case numbers and hospitalizations in the state were ticking higher.
“You saw a record high new coronavirus cases this week. I want you to take a listen to what President Trump said on Friday when he was in Wisconsin,” Tapper said, playing a clip of Trump calling for the governor to “open up” the state.
“Governor Evers, what is your response to the president?”
“Well, my response is we are in the middle of a pandemic,” Evers replied, saying that Trump was muddying the waters when he claimed that doctors were inflating their COVID-19 numbers in order to get more money from the government.
“Honest to God, it’s just breathtaking. We are in a very difficult situation here and we should be pulling together instead of pushing apart and that is frankly why I believe Joe Biden is going to win,” Evers continued. “The Republicans at the state level, they push back on everything that I’ve tried to do and we have a president that believes that the doctors are at fault, they are messing with the numbers.”
Evers went on to say that Trump’s continued claims that the United States had turned the corner were not helpful either.
“We have hospitalizations going through the roof. We had to open up an alternative care facility. So whether it’s local Republicans or leadership at the top, they helped create this and we need their help,” Evers explained. “We absolutely need somebody that understands that this is an issue and it’s a thing, people are dying. We need to have that conversation right from the top.”
Evers concluded by saying that he was not revisiting the idea of more lockdowns, adding that the important things were to stress wearing masks and social distancing — and he claimed that the primary reason people in Wisconsin were not taking some of those measures was that they were listening to Donald Trump.
